A father who finds new family

The old man is pushing 90 now, slowing down, but still moving, planning a weekend fishing trip for the two young boys who tag along some days and call him Grandpa.

They aren't his grandkids, not by blood. But through the years, Warren Schafer has learned a bit about family -- what it means, what it doesn't.

As they have for more than 40 years now, Schafer and his wife, Jennie, live less than a mile from Interstate 205 on five heavily treed acres where the drone of suburbia vanishes, washed away by the tangle of bird calls spilling from the forest.

Inside the house, the confetti from a life of civic and professional accomplishment line the paneled walls of a basement office -- neat rows of shiny plaques and framed pronouncements covering decades of dentistry and community work.

Then there are reminders of the volunteer work of his retirement. Marionettes from Vietnam. Jade-colored pottery from Thailand. A rug from the mayor of Khiva, one of the famous walled cities of Uzbekistan along the ancient Silk Road.

It's all far beyond anything he could have imagined growing up poor in western Colorado during the Great Depression.

When he was 8, his father died, and his grandmother was handed the task of raising him. Early on, she assured him all he had to look forward to was a life of herding sheep or sugar beet farming.

Schafer had other plans, joining the Navy as World War II roared into the Pacific. As a member of the naval hospital corps, at 25 he found himself serving as administrator of the Navy hospital in the Philippines.

That same drive took him through college in three years, then dental school, before he married, had four children and settled into a long career of dentistry in Clackamas.

When his first marriage ended in divorce, two of his children stayed with him and two moved to California with their mother.

He doesn't volunteer much about his children. Some of their stories are hard for him to tell. His son, Don, was killed by an explosion aboard a Navy oiler anchored off Vietnam during the war. Another son got wrapped up in drugs and never let go. A third has been in and out of jail.

Schafer says his daughter has done well. But he has no answers for some of the things that happened in his family. "If I could figure out what went wrong in my own house, maybe my experience could help some others, but I can't."

His daughter, Barbara Beauchemin, says her father always spent a lot of time with his kids. "When we were growing up, he was always taking us backpacking. My main memory is sitting in his lap getting big hugs. He was a great dad."

Several years before he sold his practice in 1991, Schafer started volunteering with what is now known as Medical Teams International.

For much of 12 years, he volunteered every other week on the group's mobile dental vans, providing free care to more than 5,000 people in need.

In 1989, he and his second wife, Jennie, a dental assistant, made the first of three trips with Medical Teams International -- one to Southeast Asia, two to Uzbekistan.

In Uzbekistan he met Shukhrat Afridjanov, who acted as his guide and interpreter. Through Dr. Schafer's efforts, Afridjanov and his wife, Oydin, were eventually able to move with their sons, Tim and Shack, to Portland.

Today, Shukhrat Afridjanov coordinates much of Medical Team International's volunteer work in Asia. Oydin Afridjanov works as an interpreter in a local school district.

In recent months, Schafer had been saving money to fly Oydin back to Uzbekistan for a visit.